the victim is
at the foot of the bed.

"Bring me unto my trial when you will.
Died he not in his bed? where should he die?
Can I make men live, whe'r they will or no?
O, torture me no more, I will confess.
Alive again? then show me where he is:
I'll give a thousand pound to look upon him.
He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them.
Comb down his hair: Look! look! it stands upright.
Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul.
Give me some drink."

Some people find humour in the Simpcox and Cade scenes. There is more
sadness and horror of heart than humour. The minds of the two great
poets were brooding together on life. They saw man working with
intellect to bring ruin, and working without intellect to bring
something beastlier than man should know. In its unfinished state the
play is without the exaltation of great tragedy. It would be one of the
hopeless plays, were it not for the passionate energy of mind with which
the nobles alter life. There is little human feeling in the play.
Warwick by Gloucester's corpse shows the sense of rectitude of a police
inspector. At the death-bed of the Cardinal, he makes the remark of a
fiend--

"See how the pangs of death do make him grin."

The one human, tender figure is that of the King, who betrays his
friend, his only true friend--

"With sad unhelpful tears; and with dimm'd eyes
Looks after him, and cannot do him good."

This gentle, bewildered soul makes the only human remarks in the play.
In Shakespeare's vision it is from such souls, planted, to their own
misery, among spikes and thorns, that the flower of human goodness
blossoms.

_King Henry VI, Part III._

_Written._ (?)

_Published_, in the crude original form, 1595. When first
published, the play was called "The True Tragedie of Richard Duke
of Yorke, and the Death of good King Henrie the Sixt, with the
whole contention betweene the two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke."
This version seems to have been by Greene, Peele, Marlowe, or by
some combination among the three. There are some marks of
Shakespeare's hand upon it; but not many. Afterwards the piece was
revised and enlarged to its present form by some unknown hand.
Shakespeare added a few touches to this revision. It was printed in
the first folio as his original work.

_Source of the Plot._ Edward Hall's _Chronicle_. Raphael